Florence+Wright

On January 12, 1909, Florence Wright, a 34-year-old Black woman born in Kentucky, died at Wesley Hospital in Chicago from nitrous oxide asphyxiation while being treated for complications of an illegal abortion perpetrated on January 3, 1909.

Midwife Louisa Achtenberg, a white woman, was held without bail for the crime of murder by abortion. She was indicted for murder but the source document doesn't indicate that there was a trial.

Achtenberg appears to have been implicated as well in the abortion deaths of Dora Swan in 1907, Violet McCormick in 1921, and Madelyn Anderson in 1924.

Note, please, that with issues such as doctors not using proper aseptic techniques, lack of access to blood transfusions and antibiotics, and overall poor health to begin with, there was likely little difference between the performance of a legal abortion and illegal practice, and the aftercare for either type of abortion was probably equally unlikely to do the woman much, if any, good. For more about abortion and abortion deaths in the first years of the 20th century, see [|Abortion Deaths 1900-1909].

For more on pre-legalization abortion, see [|The Bad Old Days of Abortion]

Source: [|Homicide in Chicago Interactive Database]

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